The two-year death and history repeating itself in the aniblogsphere

Your average anime blog do not live for very long.

I’m finding it difficult to find a starting point for this post so I’m going to simply start from where my interest in this topic sprung from. Recently, I had been flicking down through my blogroll, my reader and some other generally popular blogs and found out that a rather surprising number of them haven’t been around for that long (at least, from those who actually had a link to their archives) Want some examples?

There seems to be a cut-off point around about the start of 07 and I could find very few anime blogs that existed before that. But what’s far more interesting is to look at the names of those blogs that have been around for even longer. See if you can spot a trend in them.

“Aha~” you say. “They’re all episodic blogs!”. No, you’re missing the point. There are plenty of episodic blogs out there that die out just as regularly as editorial blogs. The word you’re looking for (thanks to Canon (Apr 07 in case you were wondering) for this) is Independence. You get the feeling that the likes of psgels, Omni, Kurogane and Jason Miao would continue to do what they’re doing until the end of time no matter what outside influences there are. What’s interesting is that some of their earlier posts show a more open (vulnerable?) side to them but they have now become these figureheads rather than one-of-the-ladz. Sea Slugs and THAT have stayed alive through the ability to go through a ‘rebirth’ without ever actually dying thanks to their team tendencies. Think about ti for a second: Who really runs THAT now? The original founder, Impz, has stopped posting, as has the other oldies like Extrange and Lelangir.

For non-episodics: Omonomono, Baka-Raptor, Karmaburn, Batezi, Anime Diet, Hashihime. Again, you’re looking at a certain degree of independence from the likes of Baka-Raptor, Hashihime and Karmaburn along with the ‘team blog’ revival trait of Anime Diet. Like how Kabitzin bucks the trend with Sea Slugs, so does Omonomono and Batezi but again you are seeing a slightly similar trait.

For your average anime blog though, the lifespan rarely goes beyond 3 years. In fact, the two year mark appears to be one the typical landmarks set to end you anime blogging career, immortalised by Subculture anime blog in what I consider to be the single greatest end to an anime blog ever (a trend Shameful Otaku Secret followed). Even to take a quick look at some recently deceased blogs, Kritik der Animationskraft lasted 14 months and Simplicity lasted 19 months. Mono no Aware seems to suggest he’s dead, right on the two year mark. There’s a few more too whose names I’ve forgotten but it certainly seems to be the trend. Even looking back through some of the oldest bloggers blogrolls, typically filled with dead blogs, there’s that usual 2 year killing point, give or take several months. Want a great example? Read this post on RIUVA. A post I’m quite glad I stumbled across (also serving to remind me what a good blog RIUVA used to be), it gives a brief history of anime blogging but also give a list of links of great anime blogs. How many of them died around the 3 year mark? The post was made December 06.

More info! (I did a lot of trawling about on the interwebs for this post) We have bloggers hitting that 2 year anniversary and feeling pretty jaded. Jinx (Jun 07) tried to leave but couldn’t. Ghostlightning posted this worrying comment about feeling like the community passing him by (and he’s been around even less time than I have!). Many blogs might not die but experience that horrible slow death, like Basugasubakuhatsu. Even bloody Chartfag is taking longer with each chart.

This posts intention is not to provide advice on how to keep your blog alive. How the hell would I know anyway? According to my statistics, I’m going to die within the next year, followed shortly by Rabbitpoets and Eye Sedso. But it’s certainly scary how history repeats itself. You know how many people seem to be complaining at the saturation of anime blogs. How the feed on Animenano is packed full of the same old same old (just to prove my point and my epic researching abilities, here’s evenmorelinks for you to click on. Heck, you even have Colony Drop, a blog dedicated to that very fact). Have any of you newfags heard of the drama that erupted on the first anime blog aggregator, blogsuki (the link is, unfortunately, dead. Which is a real shame because I still don’t know the full story). It was over the sheer amount of episodic blogs rehashing the same Haruhi episode over and over. Yup, three years ago they had that very same discussion. Links? Bluemist anime blog has something on anime blog saturation dated Nov 06, and to make it even more ironic he talks about how his passion for blogging dying. At this point he had been around for 2 and a half years. If anime blogs were saturated then, what do we have now?

History is repeating itself. As a generation comes and goes, they make the same mistakes and same judgements that the previous generation makes. There’s a three year generation gap that anime blogs conform to. Those who last longer than two years start seeing those who started alongside them drop off to be replaced by newbies, making them feel disenchanted. Those that stay on are normally those relatively unaffected by change. As much as I’d like to convince you that I won’t be affected by this two-year bug, I’m sure those now-dead bloggers thought they’d also continue on for longer. As much as I hate the idea that anime blogs are a slightly insular community, I’ve found myself similarly inside this community on twitter and whatnot. Heck, even this post is directed directly at other people in the aniblogpshere. And if those who were born around the same time as me all died, I can’t deny that it would kill a certain level of enthusiasm.

Don’t really have a fully-formed point to this post. I just did too much reading not to post about this. All I can say is learn from history. A history of the aniblogsphere would be nice. I’ve certainly learned a lot from my trawls.

Hmm, it’s certainly an interesting thing, and one I’d noticed as well. One of those things that people mention every now and then but don’t really write about.
I was going to make a more substantial comment here, but I can’t word it well, so I’ll leave it at that.

I mean, can you really claim that XX years from now, you’ll still be interested and as devoted to anime? Or any of your other hobbies? Especially after you go through college’s thesis years, or get a job, or start a family? Personally I just see a blog as another period in life, especially for the pure-anime-bloggers. Maybe the pseudo-personal anime /rant blogs would last longer. Not to mention, investing too much into a blog too quickly seems to be a surefired way to burn out faster…

In the end, does it really matter? Do people take up a hobby or game knowing that they’ll run along with it until the end of time? Have fun with it in the meantime is all that matter IMO.

You didn’t mention me. I’m pretty much an oldfag too. I think I have my fourth year in the interwebz runnin’ and although mentioning something like ‘giving up’ and all a few times, I never really did it. Mostly because I thought my co-bloggers would take my place, but they never really did, so I went on and… Well. Team-blogs are like that, I guess.

I dunno, I think there’s a certain level of profesionalism you need to be an anime blogger. Same way one has to put a lot of work into to enjoy a sport, so you also have to do to be a good anime blogger and enjoy it. Blogging is as much of a hobby as playing for your local soccer team is. You could piss about but then your team would never get anywhere and you wouldn’t have quite as much fun. Train properly and you’ll have a succesful team which is more fun.

Actually that metaphor works in more ways than one. Some people aren’t cut out for the hard training and don’t feel the extra effort is worth it. More often than not, these people stop playing soccer pretty quickly when other life things happen. I guess it all depends on how seriously you take it.

tl;dr Anime Blogging is SRS BSNSS!!!

@Gargron

So that means you started blogging at age 12? Exception to the rule then, although about 25% of bloggers are exceptions to the rule in some form or another. You don’t quite follow the standerd pattern ofcollege age blogging

It gets pretty lonely at times, which impacts motivation. I can tell you where it hurts me specifically: losing my best commenters (who happened to be my favorite writers).

Sure, I get to exchange with them on twitter, or even chat with them over on gtalk — which is really great, but the kind of blog posts I do require a lot of effort, and not having my most clever commenters around anymore sucks.

It impacts the overall comment count, and the quality of the discussion.

Given that discussion is what I seek in every post, my quality of life takes a hit. Quality of life? Yes. What I get out of this hobby wherein I put in so much of myself of, is diminished.

I think I’ll last until October this year no problem, but it’ll be hard not to feel how there wouldn’t be a better time to quit.

the thing is with blogs in general (not just anime) it’s generally the same issue. People stop or loose interest in about that amount of time (2 years) and there are even more than generally don’t last past 2 months. I for the most part don’t see a problem with that. People come and go. it’s life. Sure it’s sad to see someone you talked with a lot over those 2 years go but there will always be someone around the corner wanting to be heard.

I personally should have started up a blog YEARS ago but only did it recently because I didn’t really have enough confidence i suppose. I plan to keep on going as long as i can keep typing as i do not see my interest level dropping anytime soon if ever. If i do stop before then you can totally wag a “i told you so” in my face :P

I really enjoyed reading chikorita157′s post about “innovation” because I like to think that I am doing something different from everyone else even if some of it is the same. Generally though we all are doing the same thing, it’s just different views. I do agree with news posts though… I never saw the point in making a post about something that the major anime sites already do considering for the most part that the bloggers news post will just be a link to those major anime sites story on the subject.

anywho i’m rambling here. excellent post! lots of great blog info to keep me busy reading for a good while ^_^

@5camp Yes, I did. Hehe. Oh lord, when I think back, how immature I was… Disgusting. But it has taken me where I am now, and I like where I am. I’d just wished for more comments, for clever commenters like Pontifus on the Steampunk post, and that the ones who comment check for replies. In fact, I like @Ghostlightning seek discussions.

@Ghostlightning I think I already told you once your posts are difficult to comment on… Though if you’d ask me why, I’d fall in a confused silence.

If you’re going to die though, go out with style. That two-year end post by Subculture has a certain beauty to it, as does Shameful Otaku Secret.

The alternative is to change. Commenters come and go. Since I moved here I’ve gotten a lot more commenters, part of which is down to a slight change in style. Evolve or die.

@chii

Change FTW! Or so I’d like to say, but I can’t deny I’d be sad to see the end of those blogs that started around the same time as me. As much as I bash the oldfags, including the oldfags of the blogsphere, I can’t deny the possibility I’ll end up the same way.

I actually thought chikorita157’s post was a load of absolute nonsense and commented on it expressing that very opinion. There’s plenty of blogs providing something totally different, although I do find myself wondering what it is I do differently…

@Gargron

lol, clever commenters. I don’t quite seek discussions quite as much as I seek a response. Discussion suggests that even through the post and your reply comment that you were unable to clear up anything they brought up. I don’t think blogs are the place for discussions. That would be live-chat

Very interesting post, props for doing the research on it. Generations seems so short in blogging, and the pattern you noticed seems to be exactly so. Even being fairly new, I sometimes think about how long I’ll keep going. I’d like to think that I’d never really stop, but I have to acknowledge the fact that many people leave after about two years. I guess in a way it’s good to keep in mind as a way to stay with blogging, to have a realistic picture of it so that you don’t overburden yourself and burn out. The real test for me will probably come after I graduate and actually have a real schedule to work around.

Team blogs continue on due to new writers, but at least for me having other bloggers that you write with and interact with provides extra motivation. While it is true that one should blog primarily for the personal enjoyment, I think that there should be an element of obligation felt by the blogger. I really enjoy my blogging and have a lot of fun doing it, but on occasion it’s that obligation to the readers and to the reputation of THAT which propels me to stop slacking off and get writing. Motivations are different for everyone, so this is just my perspective.

@ Ghostlightning

Hope my invitation didn’t lead to somber thoughts, heh. I really enjoy your work, I wish I had gotten more into the blogging community and found your site earlier.

While I was still active, I found that there would always come new good commenters. Someone who had never commented at LoHP would come along and just blow me away. I also found that commenters would usually stay for a certain period, and then disappear only for new voices to appear in their place. Of course, this could be my own fault for not keeping them coming back for more.

@ scamp

Honestly, I’m not sure why so many blogs die out in this fashion. Beyond my own reasons (which seem a bit unique), it seems most people stagnate in growth and take that as a sign to exit… maybe. That’s just a guess I’ll throw out there. My own reasons weren’t really time or growth related: I wanted to do something different, that something different requires a lot of time and work, and for the time being that effort needs to go elsewhere… even if I have been cheating away time to work on the new site.

An interesting post indeed. What I can say is that once blogs cross the magical 2-year-mark, they seem to have become tough skinned enough to keep going. I can remember Kurogane recently saying (in an IRC discussion) that he intends to outlast every other blog out there. After my silly trick last fall, I feel the same way. I’ve come this far, I feel I’ve found my style and my key audience; I might as well keep on going, because I do enjoy of what I do.
In my case, meeting up with my Asian colleagues (including Kuro) in real life gave me an immense boost of motivation (considering that I’m European). I don’t know exactly why; maybe it showed me how far blogging has taken me. In any case, after my Asia trip I feel like I can keep on going as long as it takes.

It’s funny, I always think of a Nightwing quote from the old Batman cartoons where he says: “Things changed! I changed! The games over, Batman! I quit.” when it comes to topics like this. It seems oddly fitting.

Sadly, the cycle is what it is – unavoidable. I don’t think anyone ever starts with the intention to quit, but it’s like relationships that last a couple months, or a job you leave after a year or two. You never start things expecting to end it. But things change. People change. And priorities shift. It’s sad to see old faces go, but the world is a huge place, and soon, another face pops up. I hate to say we’re interchangeable pieces, but I guess that’s exactly what I’m saying :-)

Even I wonder how long I’ll stay in this game. I think I may have caused myself undue anxiety in my anniversary post by mentioning that I wanted to stick with blogging “for the long haul.” Not that I don’t, but the last thing I ever want to do is have blogging become a chore I feel like I have to do, than something I want to do. And that statement seemed like an albatross in the making. Plus, how can I know? What if I end up getting a new job that takes up all my time? What if I strike up a serious relationship with a certain special lady? I’d like to think I could continue unabated, and I certainly think I could to some degree, but even the optimist in me would admit that I’d devote less time to it.

But I think it’s always interesting to reminisce about things like these, not because anyone has any answers, but because I think in the back of our minds, we’re all thinking similar things.

On a completely separate note, that Kamina x Simon picture is really disturbing for some reason.

I have my own thoughts on this issue, but this is one of those rare cases where I prefer to keep them to myself. But, just to address some of the comments, I wouldn’t be so quick to put team blogs on a pedestal, because we all remember how spectacularly Oi Hayaku! fizzled. (Oh yeah, and even though I wasn’t really paying attention at the time, the reason I know about the blogsuki drama is because of the legendary lolikitsune).

I will say this though. If your blog is going to die, then the Totali way is the ultimate way to do it. Don’t leave your readers hanging on months of inactivity and then quietly amble off into obscurity. Kill it, and make it spectacular. A strong sense of finality and certainty is the least your readers deserve after loyally following you for so long.

Haha, I think I am one of those rare birds who started blogging after I finished college. Granted, I was jobless when I began, but hey. I’m pretty lucky in that my current job has the perfect hours for blogging. (Afternoon and evening work, hooray!)

I’ve actually been anime blogging for a little more than a year now, although I started the “real” blog a scant six months ago. There have been a couple of times where I’ve come perilously close to burnout, but what keeps me going is striking a balance between anime and everything else. Anime is the hobby I am most passionate about, but it doesn’t consume my life. If I did nothing but watch anime all day, I’d probably hate it, haha. I watch anime, movies, read, lay about like a bum, etc. My anime consumption is about an hour or two a day, which suits me just fine.

As long as I am not burned out on anime, I won’t be burned out on blogging, I think. I write because I want to write; I like sharing my thoughts with others, and writing helps me understand more about a series in general because it forces me to think more about it. I would have enjoyed Durarara anyway, for instance, but I like it 10 times more because I am about it each week. There’s always an interesting series to write about, and often an interesting angle to take with individual episodes. Seeking those angles is fun for me. I was a journalism student in college (and still work in journalism), so I approach blogging like that — what are the angles? What’s the story behind the story? Writing with that in mind won’t stop being fun for me.

If life eventually gets in the way of blogging, then that’s what happens. I’d rather not worry about that. It’s much more fun to concentrate on what I can do now and squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of it.

I’m not dying any time soon, unless I literally die or become otherwise incapacitated. If I quit, all my brilliant insight and analysis will go unheard. People who quit blogging either don’t care about becoming irrelevant or were never relevant in the first place.

While I don’t think I’ll be blogging forever, I hope to keep it up for as long as I can while I’m still an independent young adult without any idea to where her life is going. Mainly, I love the community of the anime blogsphere, though when they die out…

What’s scary is in May, I’ll hit my two year mark for being a blogger. And still be in high school. Gah! So I guess I have six more years or so.

I sometimes wonder if frequency of posts play a role if any at all on the blogger’s lifespan. Most of these bloggers update quite often. Perhaps there’s something that gets exhausted the more you blog?

I don’t think my subjects and style are to your tastes (nothing wrong with that at all), but pay close attention and you’ll see that I experimented with a wide range of ‘templates’ and styles (even episodic ones). Changing isn’t a problem.

But yes, going out with a bang is the way to go.

@Sorrow-kun

OH! died because Riex pulled the plug — his life got in the way (he’s in the Air Force now). We actually had a fair bunch of planned projects in the pipeline. Speaking for myself, some of the templates I use in WRL were initially planned for OH! (e.g. use of slideshows, self-insert ‘interviews’ with characters, etc.).

@Michael LoHP

Oh I’ve come to meet new great commenters (I actually archive their comments in http://welovecomments.wordpress.com/ (hat tip to Scamp who gave me the idea to accept submissions from outside WRL).

However, I miss the old guys (Owen, Iknight, coburn, lelangir, Omisyth, Lbrevis, otou-san, lolikitsune, etc), who I never get to discuss my posts with anymore (kinda awkward for me to bring it up during conversations).

If their comments aren’t always being insightful or informative, they nonetheless lead to fun discussions anyway.

@ExecutiveOtaku

Thank you very much. Who knows had T.H.A.T. accepted my application around August ’08 I’d still be there and we’d be doing team posts. LOL I picked your blog to join because of the Macross love obviously.

Instead I vowed to out-fag Crusader, who’s still a favorite comrade and has been a friend of WRL from the very start despite his foul mouth and haterade at me.

@ghostlightning
This is the straight answer about OH! that I’ve been after for ages but no one has seemingly wanted to give me. That’s cleared up a lot of the misconceptions I had about what happened. Looking from the outside and going from what other people were saying, I was under the impression that the whole thing just fizzled, and that the writers just became more interested in writing for their own blogs than in keeping OH! going.

So I have no idea how the aniblogisquare works. But I know how the internet and internet communities work. I guess we can call the anibiodome a big internet community.

I’ve been a part of a small internet writing community for eleven years. A few people, like myself, have stuck with it for the duration (or at least stick close enough to it to be considered a part of the community even if they aren’t “active”). Most people last a few years at most and go on their way to other stuff.

It’s just the nature of the internet as far as I can tell. I chalk it up to the fact that there isn’t as much of a tactile, personal connection to the community like you get from a group of people you meet in real life. It’s easier to just move on and not feel as attached to something when it’s just a bunch of poorly-spelled text and screenshots on your computer monitor. Some people still have it in them to say “adios, bitches” when it comes to a real life group of people, but it usually takes more than malaise and disinterest to get someone to totally break away from a group of real life peeps. Even if real life crap gets in the way, if it’s someone that you know face to face you at least try to make time to hook up with them and hang out.

So yeah, Damn you Internet! for making it far too easy for people to just go “poof.”

It’s at times like these I need those layered commenting systems. Putting this into all one comment is going to look pretty silly

@ExecutiveOtaku

Yeah I really had to take a step back and look honestly whether I would really be around this time next year. A year is a hell of a long time and god only knows what will happen to me in that period of time. As far as I can tell I’m probably still be around for the next 2 and a half years, judging by the tendancy of bloggers to drop out only after they leave college, but we’ll have to see.

@Michael is LoHP

Ah damn, I was meant to use your blog as an example for this post but totally forgot. I hope to see you back eventually, I only started reading your blog regularly in its last 3 months of its life.

The ‘new commenters’ thing is even more noticable when you’re an episodic blogger. Some of the people who followed my Hetalia posts stick around, some haven’t. There’ll always be new people visiting the blog because of the natural circle of new readers and new anime fans.

@NovaJinx

I think 3 years is probably a better cut-off point to decide whether they are truly around for the long haul. Plus I’m glad you came back because I literally started reading your blog with the first post you made after you came back (I think it was Bakemonogatari related)

What reminds me of how far I’ve come is seeing how much I’ve improved. The idea of this closed community in the aniblogsphere is something I’m not a fan of so a selfish and personal gain can be more important…wow I sound like a jackass….

@RP

“What if I strike up a ser­i­ous rela­tion­ship with a cer­tain spe­cial lady?”

Or certain special man. Hey, you never know what the future might bring~

I was actually going to reference that anniversary post to show what each blogger would like to think they’d do (I had a lot of links I didn’t use to try keep the post relatively short). I actually think that’s the right thing to do because I think a blogger needs ambition. Blogs that are happy in the place they are in get dissilusioned thanks to the inevitable change. I’m always looking for ways to move forward and improve. That hitcounter is arguably a bigger driving force than anything else. Which is a bit sad but hey, it keeps me posting regularly.

One reason I’d like to continue is to see this cycle myself. I’m awfully miffed the link to that blogsuki rant was dead and I’d love to see these changes in the blogsphere myself, in much the same way I’m glad I was around for the Endless Eight saga.

@Sorrow-kun

I’ve said it several times before, but Totali’s death has a perfect beauty to it that I think any blogger should want to emulate if they were ever to die out. In fact, the way Shameful Otaku Secret died on the two-year mark makes me wonder whether this will become a trend. It would certainly be better than that horrible slow death

Oi Hayaku and team blogs though…hmmm. If there was a similar blog to Oi Hayaku except with a purpose to produce posts that I wouldn’t ever write on here then I’d be interested in seeing one kick up again. But I’ll leave that thought aside for now

@Shinmaru

I’m not entirely sure where you’d put the start on my blogging career. My archives say July 08 and that’s certainly when I started at Bokutachi but I was reading blogs for 3 months before that and tried some other blogging things out (that I’d prefer never to go back to thank you very much). But then again, I didn’t get involved in the community until about a year later.

But burning out on anime and burning out on blogging are entirely different things I think. I could certainly see me burning out on blogging and still being just as obsessed with anime as I always was.

@Baka-Raptor

Didn’t care about being irrelevant? More like stopped caring about being relevant. No blogger starts out with the intention of being some small bit-part blogger. We all secretly wish we had legions of fans hanging onto our every word. Lose that wish and you lose your fire for blogging.

But yeah, if I quit the world would be a sadder place because nobody would hear anymore of my whining about oldfags. I have still plenty more whining to do..and thoughtfull ideas as well I guess

@Janette

Oddly enough, I’ve still yet to see any blogger die out that makes me depressed when they do so. I used to love RIUVA but even when they slowed down it never really bothered me. Besides, there’s always more out there to read.

@7

When it comes to Omni and psgels, there’s some sort of personal drive that keeps them posting as much as they do that means they will never ‘burn-out’. But those types of bloggers are few and far between (in fact, they’re probably the only two) and otherwise it’s a person by person basis.

@Glo

I finally found out while researching this post what ISSS stood for (second post you made I think?)

Anywho, I did put in an awful lot of links there and I’m sure I scared some people off with them all. The most important one in there is the RIUVA link to the ‘history of the blogsphere’ thing so everyone click on that!

@ghostlightning

*cough* yeah sorry about that but remembering love is the total opposite to what I like. An alternative name to this blog could be ‘We look forward to loving’. There’s an entire category devoted to hype building and I considered putting in a sub-category on oldfaggery.

There’s probably at least one of the comments in here worthy of a ‘welovecomments’ notification now that I think of it…

@Landon

Plenty of people start blogging before reading any anime blogs. I was reading for about 3 months but I only read Star Crossed and Sea Slugs so it didn’t really count. It’s probably not the ideal way but hey~

I can’t really comment on how the rest of the internet works because I’m not nerdy enough to have ever done anything else on the internet beyond anime and social networking (and even that I barely pay any attention to) but blogging does seem to need greater perseverance to continue at it, hence the quicker deaths.

One scary thing about the internet is if someone does go poof, you’ll never actually know what happenend to them. For all you know they could have really died or something. Having this personal gravatar, name and blog does go someway to reducing this anonimity on the internet but it’s still a long way from being real life

I started my blog in October 2006, and in the past eight months or so, I’ve been posting more than ever before. So perhaps I may become one of the long-lasting ones. However, I wasn’t able to post much from late 2007 to mid-2009 because of college, so I’ve been making up for lost time since then by posting at least a few times a week.

I only recently started paying close attention to the aniblogsphere so I didn’t notice much of the changes and events that happened in early years. I rarely do episodic posts and mostly stick to writing about whatever anime-related topic I feel like, whether it’s my first impression of new shows, reviews of completed shows, essays/rambling about certain topics, etc,. Keeping up a blog consistently for years on end is an admirable feat and I commend anyone who’s able to do it.

I started my first English anime blog in late 2007. I opened the fourth in December. Apart from blog names and mission statements, closing them down hasn’t changed me as a fan. I’ll just say it now: I think it’s fucking pathetic to read bloggers that have quit blogging and quit anime simultaneously. I say pathetic because that just says to me that they weren’t there for anime but for their indulgence in the scene, especially if all they can sum up in their farewell posts is how life is more grand than this pitiful past hobby of theirs. Guys, piss off and never come back. Thanks.

I think it’s less people starting at the same time and falling off, but rather people around the same stages of life. For example, I started DMAB in my senior year of college, and I’m currently going through my third year of med school, which increasingly limits the time I have available to watch anime, let alone blog about it. Doesn’t mean that I’m stopping anytime soon though. :P

I caught this in my referral stats, and comments days too late. It means either I’m dead or the aniblogsphere is too big for me to handle. I still pick the former, but seeing that my 3-year old post is still relevant to a discussion makes me wonder.

I’ve been here for more than 5 years now (had an older anime blog) and let me tell you that the only way to not die is to die once (do unannounced hiatus/breaks), then pretend to live again (post in burst mode over a period of time).

Kidding aside, I don’t have any particular contribution to the discussion, except that this very comment means that I’m still here. Maybe that counts as something. Make some meaning out of it guys.

I also didn’t pay attention to the community until pretty recently also. It wasn’t until probably this summer with me getting Google Reader, hopping on Animenano (we got all our hits from Animeblogger back then), but most of all actually commenting on other anime blogs that got me involved a bit more. At the moment I’m having more fun than I ever had before.

Slightly off-topic here but in thinking about that I’ve realised the slight difference between the long-term bloggers and the younger ones. Most noticably in the comments. Ever noticed what Baka-Raptor calls his comments? ‘People who love sucking up to me’. Or how about reading the comments on Star Crossed? Insteda of commenting like equals, they’re truly figureheads that are considered above the commenters.

…sorry, that wasn’t really repying to your comment but it’s an interesting thought anyway so I hope you think so too~

@Miha

Yeah, there was a post on Mistakes of Youth about that (normally don’t like him but this post was very well done). One thing I’ve only really noticed recently is those that still watch anime but don’t blog. Therefore they become part of the community but only as commenters. It’s just with these people I wish they would actually do some commenting and not think they’re above these new bloggers when they don’t write at all themselves

(you had your rage so give me this one)

@TheBigN

There are more exceptions to the rule then there are those who conform to it. Every case is different and to try fit people into this system you’ve created is an insult to the unpredictability of human life. Leaving university certainly seems to be a huge factor in blogging slowdown and if people often stop blogging after 2-3 years its a natural thinking process that these people started blogging in college.

Actually with all these comments and more reading I’ve been doing, what I’ve been noticing that the most common trend people have when they start blogging is that they don’t have an awful lot to do at the time so they find something to do. How many people start blogging while on their internship?

@bluemist

Actually this post was only made yesterday. It’s just so amazing that it’s gotten all these comments already~

Big ego-d statements aside, the death and rebirth is a hard thing to track even if the blog does have an archive (really fucking frustrating when they don’t). Plus people move about and you never know what they were doing before that and so on (how long have JP Hinanao been around for anyway?). But I can’t actually think of any major blog that went through a significant break of < 6 months and came back to post extremely regularly. It’s a hard thing to track unless you’ve actually been around to watch it happen.

Or cer­tain spe­cial man. Hey, you never know what the future might bring~

Only if it’s Hideyoshi.

One scary thing about the inter­net is if someone does go poof, you’ll never actu­ally know what happen­end to them. For all you know they could have really died or some­thing.

I’ve wondered about this too. How would you ever know? If I ever quit or take a hiatus, I’ll surely announce it. If you don’t see any posts from me over a month with no notice, please hold a virtual funeral for me.

It’s at times like these I need those layered com­ment­ing sys­tems. Put­ting this into all one com­ment is going to look pretty silly

And here I was thinking you were one of the rare people who understood why the linear commenting scheme is unquestionably superior to threaded comments (when people use them properly).

If there was a sim­ilar blog to Oi Hayaku except with a pur­pose to pro­duce posts that I wouldn’t ever write on here then I’d be inter­ested in see­ing one kick up again.

But then the question is, what wouldn’t you write on here, seeing as this is your own blog and you’re essentially the boss? Team blogs give a good opportunity to do collaborative posts and networking and what not. But, to play devil’s advocate here (completely, since I’m really a proponent of team sites) what else can you do on team blogs that you can’t do on your own site?

I (like to think I) know the answer, but I’m just curious in your take.

“There are more excep­tions to the rule then there are those who con­form to it. Every case is dif­fer­ent and to try fit people into this sys­tem you’ve cre­ated is an insult to the unpre­dict­ab­il­ity of human life.”

I wouldn’t say it’s a system I’d created. I’d say it’s another way to look at things. Of course situations are different for everyone, since that’s how life is. But I do notice that a lot of bloggers are around similar ages/stages of life. Does that mean they’re all doing the same thing? Nope. :P

Look at that reply comment though. It’s over 1000 words long. I had to sleep and go to university and when I come back I only have that option.

Even being the strongly opinionated person I usually am, I don’t have any strong opinions for team blogging. Different posts simply means collab posts. What you need is someone telling them what to write rather than leaving them to their own devices. Like that post thats coming up on THAT soon (except preferably about anime and not anime blogs. There’s only so much meta I’m willing to write)

@moritheil

Meta isn’t my forte for a bizzilion reasons so this is a once off post. Still, people seem to like it so *borat voice* ‘great success’

@TheBigN

I just re-read my reply to you and realised what a nonsense comment I wrote…so I can’t come up to a reply to your comment when I don’t really know what I was talking about in the first place :(

Brilliant post and sorry for the late comment. I believe a blog dies when the blogger hits life’s turning point like finishing school and going into college or getting new job. I started blogging 2 yrs and 3 months ago but I wasn’t always active during those time. 2008 was when I reach my final year in med school and I post like…once a month or none in two months. Right now I’m pretty active cause I have more time but in the approaching summer, I’ll be busy again. Nevertheless, I’ll somehow manage to keep my blog alive. It’s my only escape :)

After reading this, I was going to make a post titled “This blog will die on March 10th, 2010,” but I couldn’t do it! It’s just not the same when you’re commenting (well, mostly because none of my comments have much depth in the first place) and not blogging.

Yeah, that’s one thing I’ve noticed thanks to the comments. People start blogging when they have a lot of free time and stop when that free time is gone. Hence, 2 years sounds about right for that swap

@fangzhao

You mean March 2011. Hey, that means I’ll be dead this July. I should start preparing

Hmm I did not know I was considered a THAT ‘oldie’ (I thought I was a newfag when I joined), but I guess it’s all relative…

I first started blogging in April 2008 so I’m pushing 2 years, which really isn’t that long, but it’s enough to achieve some sort of veteran status, IMO. If you’re 3+ years old you’re oldfag, anything beyond that, an ancient temple elder.

Wow, this post brings back memories of bloggers since departed…and some reflection of why we’ve lasted a relatively long time. Yes, some of it is because we do constantly bring in new fresh blood, and also because of the commitment of most of us in the core team to continue putting out new material.

I’d say, though, that an even bigger reason is that we’re not just an anime blog writing about episodes or editorials. The podcast is as old as the site itself, and is tons of fun to record. The convention reporting is something that we do which relatively few other bloggers do, as well as the panels we’ve helped run in the past couple of years. A lot of those activities keep us producing stuff even if most of us aren’t exactly in the mood to blog about a particular show; it helps keep us connected to fan culture not just online but also in meatspace.

In fact, this year we want to expand even more and think about ways to earn some change in the process. Anime blogs don’t have to be only about one thing, and I’m really looking forward to the future of Anime Diet.

Another aspect, too, is that I know most of the staff in person in real life–they’re my friends. I believe Landon brought up the difficulties of Internet community, how there’s a lack of tactile interaction in many cases. Because Anime Diet was kind of composed of an organic connection between friends, that probably helped its longevity out a lot too.

Seriously? You’ve only been around 3 months longer than I have. See, it’s things like that that got me to start writing this post. There’s barely anyone whose been around longer than that

@Mike

Your first comment can be summed up in one word: Ambition. It’s how many people get relaxed in one spot and get dissilusioned when things move on. However the real-life contacts is something I’ve never seen before in anime blogs. Actually Novajinx mentioned meeting other bloggers helped fuel his ambition to continue on. Hmmm…maybe I should meet up with some english bloggers sometime

@digitalboy

Meh, so long as awesome blogs like Unmei Kaihen and Mecha Guignol keep appearing I’ll be happy even if blogs like Ogiue Maniax die…oh shit, I’ve jinxed it now!

That’s a really great meta post for the current cycle. I’m actually expecting a big dropoff of bloggers this year with the record lack of shows and also the two-year cycle thing.

The reason I’ve lasted so long is probably because blogging and anime are embellished very closely in my mind. When i started in to anime around 2000, I was closely following the first-ever crop of anime bloggers, such as hayama, Jefflawson, Momotato and so on that the act of watching anime meant I would be also reading the blogger’s writings about it and learning new things that I wouldn’t have noticed at just one watch.

As time passed and I started my own blog at 2005, it’s gone from “reading about anime” to “writing about anime” and as I slowly grew to felt comfortable about blogging, it’s pretty much become a habit i cannot kill off.

I shan’t make any promises, but I do hope to go on blogging for as long as I can watch anime and are willing to go to the hassle of doing a post. I still think it’s a chore to do a post everytime, but hey, it’s because of that I really appreciate the comments I get in return.

It’s just a matter of continuity, fandom and determination. To think that some of the hard-hitting blogs out there die memorable deaths (either the slowly-but-surely method, or the extravagant KILL EVERYTHING method), it’s kind of sad. I mean, if we are truly fans, we should ‘stay alive’ regardless of how long we put ourselves in hiatus. Like you said about THAT doing ‘rebirths’, bloggers just have to rekindle their spirits and continue ROW ROW FIGHTIN THE POWAR. And as one who manages a blog alone, I’m truly excited to take on the challenge.

So you’ve been around 8+ years? Holy shit, although that’s probably what more bloggers should do anyway. Start off by reading blogs before writing yourself, although 4 years is probably procrastinating a bit too long.

hayama, Jef­flawson, Momotato

I actually know who all these people are thanks to my researching for this post. Learning about historical figures in the aniblogsphere, bizarre really

@Shance

I don’t entirely agree with that. Trying to stay alive when you don’t have the enthusiasm anymore just results in some sort of half-arsed blog that never updates. If you reach that stage I’d say the best option is to die extravegantly and then follow a few blogs and just be a commenter. There’s a certain appeal to just being a commenter and you contrinute far more than having a dead blog would

Start off by reading blogs before writing your self, although 4 years is probably procrastinating a bit too long.

Haha, i wouldn’t put it as procastination. When I started, there wasn’t wordpress and everyone who blogged probably wrote in raw HTML and updated their frontpages manually. It was only after the start of blogging platforms did I feel like doing one. I started on blogspot.com before moving to Animeblogger.net courtesy of Maestro.

I actu ally know who all these people are thanks to my research ing for this post. Learn ing about his tor ical fig­ures in the anib log sphere, bizarre really

I started blogging way back in May of 2008, mostly as a lark. Janette, the same one who commented above, introduced me to it as she had just started recently as well. The blog she joined still needed more writers and I figured, “Well, why the hell not?” I submitted a review on King of Bandit Jing (which I now feel was very underwhelming), got accepted, and there I was. I had no experience in the aniblogsphere, except that I could write at a proficient English level.

I am one of those bloggers that fizzled out quickly. Nice to meet you. Part of that I might attribute to my poor choice of series. I picked up Wagaya no Oinari-sama, which I ended up dropping after six episodes because I just couldn’t bear to watch anymore. I also picked up Himitsu, which had a train-wreck of a sub release schedule. So, I found myself just starting out with nothing to write. I tried to keep it going with various posts, convention reports and the like, but I just couldn’t do it.

Besides that though, my life really opened up right after I began blogging. I started really getting out there in the world and having new experiences. Some of that was great: I got into wakeboarding, met many new people, and found my first job. In other aspects, well, people change and personalities clash. And sometimes, you end up getting news that you never thought you’d hear in a million years, and I mean that in a bad way.

Combined, it killed me as a blogger. Sure, I still posted on occasion, but I hardly call making a post once every two weeks to a month as “active”. I became complacent, figuring that other writers still contributed to the blog, so I didn’t need to devote the time to it.

Well, sometimes life throws you a curveball, and events suddenly left me needing to step up to the task. I started by completely overhauling the blogs organization system. I found I enjoyed the task, as mind numbing as it was. I then resolved that I’d take a series or two and stick through it for the entire run. We’re now at the start of week 7 this season and I’ve managed to keep up that resolve. I also actually started reading other blogs, though only two so far, this and BnB.

Whereas before it felt like a chore, now I’m actually enjoying myself. I find writing to be a cathartic process too. I don’t see it as a rebirth, but rather, as starting completely from the beginning. I ran two panels on blogging at Ohayocon a few weeks ago with my team leader, and in that interim I already feel woefully under qualified for the task. I’ve actually thought about the future, and how long I could keep going. If nothing else, I would like to at least find one series to follow and blog each season.

I’m not entirely sure where I was going with this wall of text. Perhaps it’s just a view of the whole process. Someone who has been around, someone who has fizzled, and someone who just started, all wrapped into one weird package. I hope it’s at least been interesting.

I guess in a way, being horribly unsuccessful at this blogging enterprise probably keeps me going. I probably did everything wrong in starting mine as it was definitely 95% whim/5% planning. There’s still some part of me that wants redemption for having started up though, which is a large part of why I keep going. Not quite 2 years yet, but I still have some concerns for beyond March 2011.

I realized this sad effect after taking over Metanorn last year. For some reason, the two year dilemma somehow just catches an aniblog off guard. At least I can say, Metanorn has survived the two-year slash, but it still applies if you consider the founders quitting.

I do have plans to stick around on long term basis but hey, this is life and weird things happen. I can only hope that I don’t face this two year demise.

I just started my blog in November, so I can’t say for certain how long I’ll be around. But I can say that I do hope to stick for a good long while. As long as there’s anime for me to watch, I want to be blogging on it.

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